Posts Tagged With: Hilton HHonors

Every so often Amex offers a spectacular bonus for signing up for the Hilton Surpass Amex Card and now is one of those times. Sign up now, spend $3000 in purchases within the first three months after approval and earn a whopping 100,000 Hilton Honors points. Plus you earn a free weekend night award on the first year of membership.

This card earns 12x points for charges at participating hotels in the Hilton Portfolio like Hilton, DoubleTree, Hampton Inn, etc. There’s also a 6x bonus on spend at grocery stores, restaurants and gas stations.

While Hilton may charge a lot of Honors points for their award rooms, one nice thing is that you can redeem points for non-standard rooms. For example, in 2015 I redeemed a boatload of points for what was essentially a 2 BR condo in Fiji. Many programs only allow point redemptions for standard rooms or suites with only a single bed but we were able to get a room with a king + two twins.

View from the balcony of our unit at the Hilton Fiji

Just by holding this card you get Hilton Gold status and if you spend $40,000 on the card in a year you’ll earn Diamond Status though it’s not recommended to chase Diamond status this way as the benefits aren’t that much better unless you’re staying at Hiltons a lot.

This card does come with a $75 annual fee and it does incur foreign transaction fees so it’s not great for international travel.

Remember that at the present time Amex is limiting bonuses to once per lifetime for a given product so if you’ve already received the bonus for this card, you’re not eligible for it again.

If you’d like to get this card, feel free to use my link. The link is good through October 4, 2017 and I will earn points if you are approved through this link.

Right now there are two loyalty programs offering a bonus on purchased points or miles. These are not new deals but will be expiring soon.

American Airlines is offering both a discount and bonus miles if you purchase between now and Monday, July 13. You’ll get a 15% discount on the purchase price and a tiered bonus, depending on how many miles you buy.

(These prices do not include applicable taxes or a $30 processing fee.)

So the sweet spot – where you’d pay the least per mile – is at the 46,000 mile level.

You may purchase up to 100,000 miles in a calendar year.

Is this a good deal? Actually, it can be! As usual, I defer to Ben of One Mile At A Time and Brian, The Points Guy as to the current value of points and miles. Ben has AA miles valued at 1.8 cents apiece while Brian values them at 1.7 cents each. So if you buy 46,000 miles and get the 15,000 bonus miles you’ll be spot-on. If you only need a few miles to top off your account, it’s not a really great deal – unless you’re going to get more than 2.5 cents of value from the award ticket you’ll get.

Meanwhile, Hilton is offering a 25% discount when you purchase their points from now through Wednesday, July 15. The discount brings the price to 0.75 cents per point (plus applicable taxes and fees). It’s interesting that the website allows the user to choose to buy 80,000 points, but the terms and conditions state that an HHonors member may only buy 40,000 points in a calendar year.

Is this a good deal? Not really. Ben values HHonors points at 0.4 cents apiece and Brian values them at 0.5 cents each. But if you need just a few points to top off an award, it may be the route to go.

Today Hilton announced a limited-time offer where you can earn 5000 bonus HHonors points for each stay between now and July 6. You must register for this promotion before you check out of your first eligible stay.

Hilton’s is one of the few websites that still uses a PIN security check rather than a password. That’s changing effective April 1, 2015 when they’ll require users to create a password rather than continue using the PIN. When I logged into my account today there was a pop-up message letting me know that if I change my password now, I’ll earn 1000 HHonors points for making the switch.

To make the change I clicked on the MY ACCOUNT link at the top of the screen, then the PERSONAL INFORMATION link under the MY PROFILE section on the left side of the screen. There it showed my current password as a series of asterisks with the words CHANGE PASSWORD beside it. It did not ask me for my old PIN but allowed me to enter the new password. The new passwords must be at least 8 characters long and contain at least 1 uppercase letter and one number or one special character. I made the change and hope to see those 1000 points in my account soon!

Yesterday I received an email from Hilton regarding a promotion on purchased points. From now through April 22, 2015 I can receive a 20% bonus on purchases of 5000-9000 points or a 40% bonus for purchases of more than 10,000 points. With the 20% bonus the points cost .83 cents each and with the 40% bonus it’s .71 cents each. Checking with the experts, I see that Ben values Hilton points at 0.40 cents while Brian values them at 0.50 cents each. So this is not a price at which I’d speculatively buy points. In fact, Hilton points are so easy to generate that I can’t think of a time when I’d buy them except if I needed to top off my account immediately. American Express offers two Hilton cards: the no-annual-fee Hilton HHonors card that earns 7 points per dollar at Hilton and 5 points per dollar at grocery stores, restaurants and gas stations and the Hilton Surpass card which gets 12x points at Hilton properties, 6x points at gas stations, groceries and restaurants as well as free Gold status for a $75 annual fee. Both of these cards also earn 3x points in all other purchase categories. So if you have time to plan well in advance for your trip, it’s easy to earn enough points without purchasing them.

The fine print indicates this is a targeted, non-transferable offer, so if you’re an HHonors member, check your email to see if you were targeted for a similar offer.

If you’ve been thinking about changing to satellite TV and looking for an incentive, perhaps this is the offer you’ve been waiting on. If you switch to DirecTV between now and January 5, 2015 you can get two free weekend nights at one of many Hilton properties.

There’s no equipment to buy and no installation costs for up to four receivers though there is a monthly fee for the receivers. Packages start at just $29.99 per month though a 24-month agreement is required. Click HERE to go to the web page. Be sure to find out about all the fees involved before agreeing to anything.

Not all Hilton properties are included but I was surprised at how short the list really is. The list includes many All-Inclusive properties and many Distictive properties but, for example, while the Conrad Koh Samui Residences in Thailand is on the list, the Conrad Koh Samui hotel is not. Rooms there can go for over $630 USD per night! So while it’s not worth changing your TV provider just for the rooms, if you were already considering this here’s the nudge you’ve been waiting for.

Hilton is currently running a targeted promo that allows you to buy HHonors points and get a bonus. You’ll have to log in to your HHonors account to determine whether you’ll earn a 20%, 30%, 40% or 50% bonus when buying points.

I was targeted for a 40% bonus which means if I buy 1000 points for $10 I get 400 bonus points at no additional charge. Likewise, if I buy the max of 40,000 points for $400 I get 16,000 bonus points. This works out to 0.71 cents per point. As always, I look to One Mile At A Time and The Points Guy to determine whether or not this is a good deal. Lucky (of OMAAT) values HHonors points at 0.4 cents per point while Brian (TPG) sets their value at 0.5 cents each. So buying points probably does not make sense unless you need just a few points to top off an award.